a. The EU Parliament

b. EUFOR

For more than seven years, the world has watched in horror as thousands of Darfuri civilians have been mercilessly massacred, brutally raped and violently separated from their families by government-supported janjaweed militias. As the Darfur Consortium has stated, the statistics are stark: 4.2 million Darfurians have been categorized as "war affected" and entirely dependent on international assistance, 2.5 million civilians have been torn from their homes, hundreds of habitats and livelihoods have been destroyed, 240,000 refugees have been hosted by Chad and the Central African Republic, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed. While the government of Sudan has orchestrated a campaign of ethnic cleansing through proxy militias, world leaders with the power to stop the atrocities have failed to react to protect Darfuris due to conflicting geopolitical interests and a lack of political will. 

Because the government of Sudan has flagrantly disregarded its responsibility to protect the people of Darfur, the responsibility has fallen to the international community and regional organizations to protect Darfuri citizens from grave violations of human rights.  
 

 

The African Union (AU) has made progress in quelling violence through troop deployment, but its resources are grossly inadequate. The African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) was an AU peacekeeping force originally founded in 2004, with a force of 150 troops, whose deployment was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). By mid-2005, its numbers were increased to about 7,000, but it was still not able to effectively contain the violence in Darfur. AMIS' mandate was extended repeatedly throughout 2006, while the crisis in Darfur continued to escalate. The overwhelmed AU troops were to be reinforced by a robust UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur under 31 August 2006 UN Security Council Resolution 1706 but the failure to obtain consent of the Sudanese government prevented the force from being operationalized. Resolution 1706 was the first to make reference in a country-specific situation to paragraphs 138-139 of the 2005 World Summit, by which governments endorsed unanimously the Responsibility to Protect. The unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1769 on 31 July 2007 later authorized the deployment of a 26,000-strong joint UN-AU force for Darfur (UNAMID). The Security Council extended the UNAMID mandate in 2010, and demanded an immediate end to fighting by all parties.

 

The EU Parliament passed a number of resolutions referring to the Responsibility to Protect, denouncing atrocities and asking for protection of civilians on the ground in Darfur:

  

· On 6 April 2006, the EU Parliament referred to RtoP for the first time in a Resolution on the situation in Sudan which called for UN action to protect civilians, recalling the 2005 commitment made by the international community to RtoP.  

 

· On 28 September 2006, the EU parliament urged the Government of Sudan to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur, underlining that “Sudan has failed in its ‘responsibility to protect’ its own people and is therefore obliged to accept a UN force in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1706.” 

· On 15 February 2007, an EU Parliament resolution referred to the Responsibility to Protect and called for the deployment of a UN-supported peacekeeping force in Darfur even in the absence of consent from the Sudanese government in order to secure humanitarian aid corridors and protect the population. 

 

· On 12 July 2007, the Parliament directly called on the UN to act in line with its ‘Responsibility to Protect’, demanding that Members States, the EU Council and the Commission provide effective protection to the people of Darfur. The Resolution also welcomed the AU/UN Hybrid Force and urged for an international force in Chad.  

 

· On 22 May 2008, the EU Parliament referred to the Responsibility to Protect norm and strongly condemned Sudan’s failure to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution called on the European Council and the UN Security Council to take steps towards adopting targeted sanctions against Sudanese officials responsible and to end impunity.

 

· On 12 March 2009, the Parliament referred to the "Responsibility to Protect" in the resolution on the expulsion of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Darfur.

The European Force in Chad-Central African Republic (CAR) was deployed under UN mandate provided by UN Security Council Resolution 1778 to East Chad and Northeast Central African Republic from January 2008 to March 2009 with three main objectives: to protect civilians, in particular refugees and displaced persons around the Darfuri border; to improve security to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid; and to contribute to protecting UN personnel and facilities. The EUFOR mission was the largest multinational EU operation in Africa to-date and involved 3,700 troops from 23 EU Member States, displaying efficient cooperation between the EU and the UN. Similar to the AU and UN missions, EUFOR struggled to implement its mandate due to a lack of political will, logistical support, and inadequate military equipment. 

 

 

The Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), signed in May 2006 by the government of Sudan and one faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army, did little to curb the violence, in part because it failed to secure endorsement by key rebel factions.

 

In March 2007, the UN High-Level Mission released a report on the human rights situation in Darfur, using the Responsibility to Protect as a framework to analyze the failure of Sudan to protect its population from mass atrocities and how the international community had responded. The report made clear that while the international community, acting through the UN and the AU, had intervened with diplomatic, humanitarian, human rights and development assistance, the vast majority of its recommendations remain unimplemented by the Sudanese Government, and effective protection for civilians is yet to be secured.

On 30 April 2007, UN Security Council Resolution 1755 was passed, reaffirming the 2005 World Summit Outcome document which endorsed the Responsibility to Protect, and Security Council Resolution 1674 on the Protection of Civilians. In addition to extending the mission in Southern Sudan for six months, the resolution expressed "grave concern" over the seriousness of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur, condemned attacks on civilians, called upon all parties to "put an end to the violence and atrocities in Darfur," and also asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to appoint "urgently" a new special representative for the U.N. Mission in Sudan (known as UNMIS).

 

The unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1769 on 31 July 2007 authorizing the deployment of a 26,000-strong joint UN-AU force for Darfur was an important step toward providing much needed protection to mistreated civilians. However, the Sudanese government’s continuous administrative harassment and diplomatic obstruction of the deployment of the UNAMID peacekeeping mission stood in the way of an already belated reaction to the needs of civilians for peace and security. The troops were initially scheduled to be deployed by the end of 2007, but only 9,000 soldiers of the proposed force, the UN's largest, had been deployed as of January 2008. The joint UN and AU peacekeeping force officially took over from the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) on 31 December 2007 and took almost two years to reach full deployment due to Khartoum's continued hampering and delays as well as large gaps in logistics and helicopters.

 

 

On 14 July 2008, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed an indictment against President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, the first time the ICC indicted a sitting Head of State. The ICC’s unrelenting commitment to end impunity sent a strong message to all state leaders that they will be held accountable for international crimes they commit against their populations.

  

On 4 March 2009, the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest for Omar Al-Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity, and two counts of war crimes. The five counts of crimes against humanity were for murder, torture, rape, extermination, and forcible transfer; the war crimes charges were based on intentionally directing acts against civilians and pillaging. Genocide charges were not accepted on the grounds that the Prosecutor had not provided sufficient evidence. However, the ICC judges found that Al-Bashir had played an "essential role" in orchestrating and coordinating the state apparatuses and security forces (including the Janjaweed militias), and that the attacks had followed a consistent and repetitive pattern.

 

In response to the arrest warrant, the Sudanese government immediately expelled 13 humanitarian non-governmental organizations that were working in Darfur. The expulsion was tantamount to creating another humanitarian crisis, as IDP's in Darfur have been entirely dependent on the work of NGOs for their survival. Halting their operations left 1.1 million people without food, 1.5 million without healthcare, and at least one million without drinking water, according to the UN, which describes the groups as "integral" to the world's biggest humanitarian operation. The government also launched a clamp down on human rights activists in Sudan. Many have been forced to leave the country while the government’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) have silenced those remaining, according to Amnesty International. 

Click here for more information on consequences of the expulsion of NGOs.

On July 12, 2010 a second arrest warrant was issued for al-Bashir on three counts of genocide committed in Darfur, the first time an arrest warrant for the crime of genocide was issued by the Court. The Sudanese government, al-Bashir supporters, the Arab League, and the African Union (AU)  denounced the warrants. The AU Assembly, at its 16^th annual summit, called for the UN Security Council to defer proceedings against President al-Bashir in accordance with Article 16 of the Rome Statute. While the 114 states that are signatories of the ICC have the responsibility to arrest al-Bashir should he travel to their country, neighboring states continuously ignored the warrant as evidenced by al-Bashir’s ability to freely travel to Chad and Kenya in 2010. Despite the actions of the ICC, the Prosecutor stated in December 2010 that genocide was continuing in Darfur, and that the Sudanese government was not cooperating with the ICC.

 

International attention focused on Sudan and north-south tensions as the country prepared for and peacefully carried out the January 9, 2011 referendum on southern secession. Meanwhile however, the situation in Darfur started deteriorating in the weeks leading up to the vote as a rising levels of attacks on civilians and human rights violations, including sexual violence, were reported in the region. Human rights and advocacy NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, African Centre for Peace and Justice Studies and The Enough Project, released a letter expressing concern for the increased clashes between government and rebel forces, and stated that attacks on civilians by government military in Khor Abeche, Shearia, and Shangil Tobayi caused the displacement of 32,000 people. The letter denounced that despite the presence of the UNAMID force, civilians have remained vulnerable and targets of violence, while information about security in Darfur and the impact of violence is largely unavailable. NGOs requested that the UN publish more regular reports on the humanitarian and human rights situation in Darfur and throughout Sudan in order to more effectively monitor the situation on the ground. They also pointed to the necessity for Sudanese parties to respect international humanitarian law, allow humanitarian access to populations in need, and ensure accountability for crimes that have been committed.

 

Coalition for the International Criminal Court; ICC Cases & Situation: Darfur

Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect; Populations in Focus: Sudan